This article is from page 16 of the 2011-07-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
A CLARE student, with dreams of reaching for the stars, is over the moon this week having seen his research launched aboard the last flight of the space shuttle.
Third-level student Gerard Newsham (24), a post-graduate student at Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT), is currently working at the Space Life Science Lab in Florida. On Friday, he was on countdown at the NASA Kennedy Space Centre for lift-off of the final space shuttle mission which has his science project onboard.
Speaking from the Space Centre, the Corbally student said, “I can’t describe how I feel; amazing is just not a strong enough word. Most of the time it just seems so unreal. I have to keep pinching myself.”
Gerard is working on a project entitled, ‘Symbiotic Nodulation in a Reduced Gravity Environment (SyNRGE)’, which set out to learn how plants and bacteria work together in space.
In an interview with The Clare People , Gerard revealed that his sights have always been on the heavens.
“Ever since I was younger, I always wanted to be involved in the space program but never thought it would happen. I had always told myself if I could just see the Kennedy Space Centre and see a shuttle launch, I’d be more than happy. Today and every day since October 2008, it’s to my delight I get to go there, do research and watch the shuttle launch.”
Gerard has been in Florida at the Kennedy Space Centre since October 2008, courtesy of an internship at the FÁS Science Challenge. His project was selected for flight in 2010, as his research at Limerick Institute of Technology at the Controlled Environment Lab for Life Science (CELLS) is directly linked to SyNRGE.
Staff and fellow post-graduate stu- dents from LIT watched live feeds from the Kennedy Space Centre, where the final mission for the 30year-program took off. The space shuttle Atlantis is destined for the International Space Station.
The Clare student says that he hopes to continue his exploration where no man has gone before.
“I hope to be here for the rest of my career. The staff and the facilities at the Kennedy Space Centre are worldclass and second to none,” he told The Clare People .